


The Book of Common Prayer

by gardnerhill



Category: Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms, Sherlock Holmes - Arthur Conan Doyle
Genre: Community: watsons_woes, Gen, Prayer
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-04
Updated: 2013-07-04
Packaged: 2017-12-17 15:40:21
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 634
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/869185
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gardnerhill/pseuds/gardnerhill
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>But thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret; and thy Father which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly. (Matthew 6:6, KJV)</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Book of Common Prayer

**Author's Note:**

> For JWP 2013 Prompt #3, Sacred Spaces (incorporate the religion or philosophy of your choice, into today's story, in whatever manner you choose)

Victorian men of science and medicine that they are, Sherlock Holmes and John Watson have only the most desultory connection with any official practise of religion. They do not regularly attend any church service, and Bible stories are so far removed from the vast lumber room of Holmes’ brain that he missed a vital clue investigating Col. Barclay’s death because of it. They attend services on Christmas Day and Easter Sunday – when the work permits – but unless a robbery has taken place in St. Paul’s, or Yorkminster has had a sinister message scrawled on a marble tomb above the sprawled corpse of a seminarian, they rarely enter a church.

 

Prayer, however, is a daily occurrence for both men.

 

###

 

_A case today, dear Lord. Turn his eyes away from that foul syringe today, and give him work._

**_If You do indeed exist, I ask You to let him sleep through the night, just once this week; keep the war away from his dreams._ **

_Goddammit, keep my temper in check when I confront him over this infernal mess!_

**_Rein in my impatience with him; I would not drive him away for the world._ **

****

_Open my eyes, a little more; help me to see what he sees, just a little extra. I couldn’t bear it if my stupidity and tedium as a companion drove him away._

****

**_That unhappy wretch. Drink as well as opium, he started respectably enough but has bled through his sustenance, and his family has rejected him. One wrong step – the absence of an Army doctor in my life, for example - and there but for the grace of God goes Sherlock Holmes._ **

_What a miserable worm I am, to beg You to keep that treasure lost. I love her, and am sure to my soul that she loves me – but every jewel is a stone in the wall between us._

****

**_Let me find her treasure. Let the treasure turn her head, and send her looking for prospects befitting an heiress. Women are women; surely he will be a little less attractive to her when she is wealthy!_ **

_Give my solitary friend the peace and happiness I have found in my married life._

**_He exists. This brilliant, twisted man is my equal in every way, but a master of crime. I could not ask for a greater gift._ **

_Oh God oh God oh God no no no let me be in time let him be safe let him know I did not desert him in his hour of need oh God - !_

**_Let me only live to see him again, just once. Let me finish this work, and see him again._ **

_I am… still useful. I can work. Everyone  in the world I loved – the two I loved most – are dead, and I am alone; but others still need me. Keep me from thinking of the revolver today._

**_Heartless and cold-blooded as I know this proves me to be – Thank You, from the bottom of my heart, for Ronald Adair._ **

_He lives. Thank You. Thank You._

**_Give me the courage and brilliance today to be the man he sees in me._ **

_Let him need me still, though my youth is gone._

**_For God’s sake, let him not be hurt!_ **

_Keep him safe, among those American wolves, and let him come home._

**_Keep him safe in those foul trenches, and let him come home._ **

_Give him the peace and conviction that life is good._

**_Let me join him. Please. Let there be some aneurysm buried in my heart or brain, a cancer undetected, a viper among the beehives, a lurking grandson of a criminal bent on revenge. Do not let an inch of grass grow above him before I join him._ **

****

**_###_ **

****

And because these prayers were spoken silently, in the heart and the mind, they were answered.


End file.
